I was looking through some old material and I found some git tips I presented at the the Haverhill
Hackers Meetup during one of the “lighting talks” meetups. I originally put them in a
gist, but feel it would be helpful to others to post here. Enjoy!

Alias git and common commands

at a minimum, alias g="git", it’s a tool you use all the time save those keystrokes!

I recently gave a talk at the Haverhill Hackers Meetup about “real refactoring” where I
went through a few refactorings I had made in our codebase at QueueDr. The examples were
dumbed down a bit for simplicity sake, but the motivations and changes made were clearly displayed.
The talk went well and I think those who attended(including myself!) learned a few tricks to bring
into their own codebases.

When you start a new project and you are the only developer working on it the possibilities seem
endless. No worrying about other hands getting into the codebase and messing everything up. No
dealing with shitty legacy code. Then a funny thing happens. Your hands get into the codebase and
mess everything up. Your code becomes the shitty legacy code you feared. You quickly realize that
you are capable of all the things you complain about, and that completely fine.

Business happens. We rush things, skip testing, and write horrible hacks(that we intend to fix
sooner and not later). Outside pressures have a direct effect on code quality. At the end of the day
though, having something working and shipped today is far better than something perfect
weeks/months/years from now. All code can end up being legacy code, even if you wrote it.

This is why refactoring has to be part of your process even if you are the only one touching the
code. It’s unrealistic to think you’ll write everything the way it should be the first time
around. So, put on your refactoring hat and get going. Start small. There is no need to be afraid
and become paralyzed at the thought of embarking on this refactoring journey, no matter how horrible
the codebase has become. It’ll be worth it.

Never stop improving, tweaking, and assessing your development
process. I think we often get stuck in a certain setup and fear changing it.
For example, I often find myself using my mouse while in vim even though I know
I shouldn’t. I know I could easily disable the use of the mouse in my .vimrc,
but I fear it will slow down my flow. That’s bullshit. I should take the time
to learn my tools and improve my skills on a daily basis, not just when it’s
convenient. It’s never going to be convenient. So, improve now and never stop.